Project Manager - SC CLEARANCE ESSENTIAL

*PLEASE ONLY APPLY IF YOU HAVE CURRENT, ACTIVE SC CLEARANCE*

Portfolio Planning & Dependency Management

• Own the identification, mapping, and active management of dependencies across the portfolio - between projects, programmes, teams, and external suppliers - maintaining a clear, current, and actionable dependency picture at all times.
• Develop and maintain integrated portfolio-level plans that reflect actual delivery cadences, team capacity, and cross-programme sequencing requirements, updated continuously rather than as periodic reporting exercises.
• Facilitate regular dependency reviews, planning sessions, and look-ahead workshops with stakeholders across Digital, Finance, Legal, Operations, and other divisions, ensuring blockers are surfaced early, owned clearly, and resolved collaboratively.
• Support the Head of Portfolio in forward pipeline management and resource planning, providing data-driven insights to inform prioritisation and sequencing decisions across competing demands.
• Identify and escalate risks and conflicts arising from competing priorities, resource constraints, or cross-programme dependencies - presenting clear options and recommendations, not just problems.
• Lead or coordinate delivery of portfolio-level projects and initiatives, applying agile principles and iterative delivery cycles with clear milestones, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Act as a credible and trusted partner to Delivery Managers and product teams, integrating portfolio management and assurance activity into their delivery cycles without creating friction or duplicating effort.
• Apply GDS service standard principles and the Government Digital and Data framework to how portfolio projects are scoped, run, and evaluated.
• Maintain delivery visibility across the portfolio using appropriate tooling - Azure DevOps, Jira, or equivalent - including backlog management, sprint tracking, and dependency visualisation.
• Champion agile and continuous improvement ways of working within the portfolio function, helping colleagues move towards leaner, more adaptive delivery approaches.
• Develop and maintain a working understanding of the organisation's DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and release cadences, ensuring portfolio-level planning is aligned with - not working against - how digital teams actually deliver.
• Work with Digital, Technology, and third-party delivery teams to ensure portfolio governance and assurance requirements are factored into delivery planning from the outset, not retrofitted at the end.
• Coordinate across release trains and delivery teams to manage the impact of cross-portfolio releases, ensuring dependencies are understood and integration risks are actively managed.
• Identify opportunities to align portfolio management activity with DevOps rhythms - PI planning, sprint reviews, release windows - to reduce duplication and increase the relevance of portfolio oversight.
• Own and manage the demand intake process for the portfolio - capturing, triaging, and prioritising requests from across the business in a structured, transparent, and consistent way.
• Work with stakeholders to articulate demand clearly, ensuring requests are properly scoped, sized, and assessed for dependency and capacity impact before entering the delivery pipeline.
• Maintain an accurate forward view of demand, helping senior leaders make informed decisions about sequencing, resourcing, and trade-offs across the portfolio.
• Continuously improve how demand is captured and managed, introducing lightweight tooling or process changes where they add genuine value.
• Manage relationships with third-party suppliers, system integrators, and external delivery partners engaged across the portfolio, ensuring deliverables are clearly scoped, tracked, and reviewed against agreed commitments.
• Ensure third-party dependencies, risks, and delivery commitments are fully incorporated into portfolio planning and dependency management, with clear accountability for supplier-owned milestones.
• Support procurement and commercial activity in line with Civil Service and departmental policy, working with commercial colleagues to onboard and manage suppliers effectively throughout the engagement life cycle.
• Hold suppliers to account through structured governance checkpoints, escalating performance concerns promptly and with clear evidence.
• Produce clear, concise, and insight-driven reports, board papers, and briefings for senior leadership and governance forums, translating complex delivery and dependency information into accessible, decision-ready formats.
• Maintain proportionate project and portfolio governance documentation - integrated plans, RAID logs, decision logs, and capacity models - that supports delivery without adding unnecessary overhead.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of portfolio processes, tooling, and reporting, actively seeking feedback from delivery teams and stakeholders on what is and is not working.

Digital Project Delivery DevOps-Aware Planning & Release Coordination Demand Management & Intake Third-Party & Supplier Management Governance & Reporting